ent. Children were stepped on and soothed, a continuous
performance. The committee-on-cooking got in the way of the
committee-on-washing-the-dishes; the committee-on-waiting-on-the-table
almost came to blows with the committee-on-slicing-the-bread. Toward
noon the scramble for places began. Then the people began to gorge.
There was a constant reaching and grabbing. The clearing resounded with
phrases of intricate politeness:

"Thank you to trouble you fer one them pickles, Si."

"Please'm gi' me a little your tongue, Miz Dade."

"Reach me some more bread, if you don't care whut you do, Quin."

Beyond the long tables little private parties sat here and there, ranged
around red table-cloths, flat on the ground, stuffing, greasy-fingered,
hospitable, happy.

Beyond these little parties, off in the young trees, in the buggies and
buck-boards, were still smaller parties, the red-necktie young men and
the girls with bright flowers in their hats, two and two, two and two,
all through the thicket, each duet very happy, drinking out of one tin
cup, the red-necktie young man assiduously putting his lips to the cup
on the spot where the girl's lips had touched it.

Everybody ate incessantly. At first to appease hunger; then probably
because of a dim prevision that by the middle of next week some
reproachful memory might assail one if one did not do one's full part by
the present abundance. It was not until the sun had long passed the
zenith that the gorging and stuffing came to an end, and then it was
only because word began to circulate among the people that "the mill
was open"; that "the people could go down now," in fine, that the great
hour of that great day had come. Following upon the rumour, Francois
Placide DeLassus Bernique again mounted a stump. This time he said:

"I am authorise' to make to you the announcement that the first mill of
the Canaan Mining and Development Company is now to commence to r-r-un,
and to invite you in the name of Mistaire Steering to assemble in the
Choke Gulch, there to behold the begin' of a new e-r-a of pr-r-osperitee
for thees gr-r-eat State of Missouri. But before that we go, I ask your
attention for the one moment to those word of our fellow-citizen,
Mistaire Steering!" He stopped, reluctantly but heroically, and
Steering, quitting the side of the girl in black, mounted the stump.

"Ladies and gentlemen," said Steering, "it was my wife's idea to make
the opening of the first mill o